Just wondering how other people manage their inventory. I often find myself keeping certain artifacts that provide large buffs to situational abilities, just in case the need arises, as it usually does at SOME critical point. In fact, I have a tendency to struggle in dropping stuff, because I'm afraid I'll desperately need it at some point in the future and die as a consequence. How do you guys handle this sort of thing?
I send almost all artifacts to the museum via Archeology. The only ones I keep are those that can potentially fill a spot in my equipment if I can Krong them (I don't have a good track record in that regard though, they usually end up in the museum anyways). I sometimes keep high quality non-artifact items so I can Krong them and send to the museum. I dump all the crafting stuff (Tinkering is my hobby) in a big room as soon as I make it to a new floor. Same goes for most of the potentially useful potions, wands, and bolts (I keep one or two of each in my inventory for emergencies, the others I can always go back for). All meat gets put through the Elven Grinder and into the Horadric Lutefisk Cube. Most cheese goes through the Elven Grinder as well, unless I'm really low on eggs, and then I might dump most of them on the floor with all the crafting items and carry around the biggest cheese stack.
From experience, I know that I never use most of the neat artifacts I end up hoarding, so they get sent to the museum as soon as I get them and am not close to leveling up (unless they're trap affinity items, especially ones that can be swapped in and out with right-click). An exception was the Necro Feet build, in which I played the first half of the game as a melee fighter with the Pact while collecting mage gear for the second half, but sadly that is no longer viable in 1.08. I also have a Horadric Lutefisk Cube permanently open just under the minimap, and most items not of immediate use go straight into it. Thanks for the Grinder tip - I had not thought of that.
i usually leave all the NPC trash on the floor and come back for it when i clear the floor and found a shop nearby. my alternate gear is on my belt so i can easily exchange equipment with a simple right click when needed (trap affinity gear for free XP and damage gear) any ores and ingots i find on the floor are inmediately turned into bolts to feed the lutefisk cube.
I generally keep any artifacts that have high spcific spell resists (such as the frost res mittens and the wyrmscale shield) or high damage buffs with no resists. I swap them out pretty often mid fight. My current melee character on Dlvl 11 has a hat for fighting fell carrots, a hat for fighting muscle diggles, a shield for fighting mucle diggles, a shield for fighting casters, frost res gloves, fire res shields, existential res ring and so on. I use them all. (oh and a trap affinity ring ^_^ ) Mow through any non physical damage mobs with my +7 damage boots, then switch to my +8 physical res boots for hard hitters. It makes such a difference. If I went for a "Jack of all trades" gear set, with middling amounts of everything, chances are all the extra damage I'd take would make zoos *much* harder. I also don't krong unless I pick up a piece of gear roughly equal to what I'd want to krong. Bit too risky for me otherwise. All my meat gets ground and once I'm out of diggle eggs for cheesey omlettes, so does the cheese. I generally keep 2 stacks of good food and 2 stacks of the current type of drink I'm picking up most off the floor (for melee at least) Anything cheap gets cubed. (And I love Burglary for just that reason. Lockpicks to lutefisk is handy.) And I *never* ever pick a crafting skill. I very quickly get fed up of having around 7-8 slots left to pick things up for selling.
